In July, Aron had to go out of town for a week for summer camp and so I was on the search alone. During this time, I felt like God made it even clearer to me that it was very important for us to find a home that would fit us but would not break the bank. I felt like He was telling me to stay simple, stay focused on paying off debt, so that if/when He calls us to "the next thing" we would be free to go/do. The problem was that I knew Aron wasn't convinced. His idea of the right house and mine still hadn't quite meshed. But taking my friend Leslie's hints, I didn't say anything and just kept searching.
Meanwhile, a friend from church informed me of a house she'd been inside while at an estate sale that she'd learned was going to be put up for sale soon. I kinda stored it in the back of my mind because while Aron was out of town, I was scheduled to view a few more homes. While Aron was at camp he called me and we had quite a conversation. He told me how since the church had used charter buses to get all the kids to camp he had been in charge of driving one of the church vans so that in case anything went wrong like a student getting hurt, he'd be able to drive down them down the mountain. Anyway, since he was alone in the van he listened to talk radio, his favorite type of in-the-car listening, and the Dave Ramsey show came on. Now typically, Aron only listens to talk radio that is either about politics or sports. Financial advice is not his "cup of tea" but he, for some reason, decided to listen. And wouldn't you know, the whole show was people calling in boasting, "We're debt free! We're debt free!" And it really spoke to Aron. He, without my prompting, realized that we needed to be looking for a house in a lower price bracket so that we could start saving money to pay off his student loans (our only debt besides housing). I was in shock!! This was definitely a God-incidence (no such thing as a co-incidence in my mind!).
Since Aron and I were now on the same page, I got the information from my friend Connie (she had been to the estate sale, walked around the house knowing we needed a home with four bedrooms, and had the thought to ask the owner if it was for sale, which it was going to be, and got her name and phone number for me!) from the slip of paper I'd jotted it down on, and called the owner of the house. She informed me that she was meeting with her realtor that Saturday to get it put on the market and that we were free to come on by to take a look at it. I asked her what she would be pricing it at and when she told me, I got even more excited about this possibility. It was just where we needed to be to stay on our new plan of paying less per month for our housing in order to have money left over every month to get out of debt.
Aron was returning home from camp Friday evening and Saturday morning, we were scheduled to go view the house. In the week he was gone to camp, I drove by the house several times, at different times of day to get an idea of the neighborhood. It was only about a one minute drive away from where we were already living, and we already liked the area. The house looked to be in good shape from the outside and I was beginning to really think this might be just what God had up His sleeve for us.
....to be continued....
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